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Nation-building by any other name

If the United States is not prepared to address the underlying political conflict and to know whose side it is on, the military may end up separating warring parties for an indefinite period…. [T]he military is a special instrument. It is lethal, and it is meant to be. It is not a civilian police force. It ...

By Mike Boyer

April 27, 2007, 5:40 PM

If the United States is not prepared to address the underlying political conflict and to know whose side it is on, the military may end up separating warring parties for an indefinite period.... [T]he military is a special instrument. It is lethal, and it is meant to be. It is not a civilian police force. It is not a political referee. And it is most certainly not designed to build a civilian society.

If the United States is not prepared to address the underlying political conflict and to know whose side it is on, the military may end up separating warring parties for an indefinite period…. [T]he military is a special instrument. It is lethal, and it is meant to be. It is not a civilian police force. It is not a political referee. And it is most certainly not designed to build a civilian society.

AFP

That was U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice writing in Foreign Affairs in 2000. One might rightly ask, is that not the precise situation the United States finds itself in today in Iraq? In an interview with the Financial Times published earlier this week, Condi said no, it is not—well, sort of.

QUESTION: [B]ut do you not think that General Petraeus … is engaged in nation-building?

SECRETARY RICE: I think General Petraeus is engaged in counterinsurgency, which has an aspect of — certainly of improving the lives of people. But the process of nation-building is a longer-term one…. And that is something that is absolutely a function that will have to be done by civilians.

So the $2.5 billion dollars that up to now has been spent by the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) isn’t nation-building? CERP allows U.S. military civil affairs officers throughout Iraq to tackle a range of projects from renovating health clinics to digging wells and painting schools. “In lieu of civilian U.S. government or NGO aid personnel, who are not present in most of the country, commanders identify local needs and dispense aid,” explains the Congressional Research Service in a recent report (pdf).

Come up with some clever military jargon for that activity if you like (“security enhancement spending” has a nice ring), but nation-building by any other name is still nation-building.

One other comment on the Financial Times interview. The interviewers clearly assume that Condi Rice is a foreign-policy “realist” who is just now gaining the upper hand in bureaucratic turf wars. But that’s the wrong way to look at Rice, argues Marcus Mabry in a fascinating new Think Again piece for FP. Check it out.